some additional arguments/points:
each time someone whines at me @elo hell, i send them to those vids and say "if you are really that good as you say, this is roughly how your games should go"
you are the only constant in each and every one of those games.
don't defuse flamers/raise morale because it's "nice thing to do" do it because it makes things easier and more convinient
if you don't come with the mindset of carrying these four noobs to the bitter end be it hell or high water, despiteyour teams sabotaging - what are you doing here son
actually there isn't much difference between skill in various divisions; by that i mean that lower elo makes more mistakes and punishes them less, so they sort of even out. higher elo makes less mistakes and/because it punishes them harsher, thus it also evens out. ergo: each mistake you make is a reminder why you aren't a diamond/plat/what-have-you
some puny little pawn starts trying to rile you up?
are you seriously so weak to be bothered by it? man up.
stop giving them excuses, people rarely have the gall to moan (in the unfun sense) when you are too busy slaughtering the opposing team just because you can (and when they do, the whole scenario becomes hysterical)
lookatit, sad little thing trying - and failing miserably - to build up it's ego with whining because it sucks too much at LoL to utilise other aspects of the game.
why do you assume they even HAVE brains. they are for all intents and purposes bots to be pinged around the map as if you were playing an RTS. they don't listen?
once you're 12/0/6 doing pentas left right and center/cockblocking each frag attempt of your opponents they'll start paying attention.
see below
why do you expect them to be useful in any way shape or form. unless you spoon-feed them gold they are mobile wards at best. after that they become distractions and meat shields - if you're lucky, that is, so don't count on it.
INB4 "you botched formatting": whine to tumblr for devouring/changing html tags each time i try to fix the last dissapearance/not showing proper formatting on dash
And this also (I need to follow that guy I like his videos)
not what you hoped for OP but it made me realise having a PoV switch right now would be 200% psych and could happen. As in: 'in the narrow room' subpart ends, as we hop to elsewhere and do plot there (Lucy team? Kenji & Tecchou? Mori movement? Atsushi getting to Fukuchi & co, even tho i keep making that call and it keeps proving wrong?) and another subpart, then in 3rd subpart resolve Meursault decisively. Thanks, i hate it.
re: topic (but still not quite): it's been grinding my gears that noone is calling this, but: regardless of DoA resolution, the optics/situation for ability users is terrible. Globally. For the average person this is a broken masquerade scenario - vampires EVERYWHERE in a way that cannot be covered up or handwaved away. If they get to know the details, it would be caused by an ability user (1) being wielded by another ability user (2) using an anomalous object created by another ability user (3!!!). Given that previously ability users weren't public knowledge, populace's 1st contact would be of "they are an existential threat". This makes them convinient scapegoats for both the actual chaos and other assorted problems, real or imagined. At this point 'removing nations'(yes i know it's a coverup, but let's be real: if it worked you could bootstrap any objective with it.) would be merely an assurance that an aggregate database of ability users would be created - which with sufficently bad PR is a very scary proposition, indeed.
as a sidenote, i've once thought myself into an interesting spot: let's take the "What is the opposite of crime?" bit from No Longer Human seriously for a moment; a 'crime' is whatever either law or society deems undesirable action. Because society is made out of smaller societies, and each will have norms that differ slightly (or even conflict with the law/norms of other societies), any given action could be declared a 'crime' by any of the above. Therefore, crime = action. Therefore, the opposite to crime would be inaction. Every living being acts (commits actions?) by the virtue of being alive (breathing, eating, sleeping). Therefore, only inanimate objects do not commit crimes. Now that we have logic'd ourselves to "The sin crime is breathing", the question remains: Do corpses count on the grounds of being alive at some point? Within these parameters, it's actually another question: Are crimes forgivable? Since multiple things can all be called 'crime', despite different severity, the answer would be a binary yes/no.
At which point, the thread splits into two:
1) From a character backstory perspective: assuming he learnt of his ability by killing family memeber(s) accidentally, who exactly could give him forgiveness for it? assuming he does not regret a kill (both in the sense of "can't logic your way out of lack of fucks to give, chief" and "doesn't go into hysterics as seen in other people"), dogma would not give him forgiveness either. Therefore, the answer is: no.
2) From what i vaguely remember of C&P, the entire thing is a setup to do a redemption arc. For a redemption to happen (as opposed to what TvT poetically calls Heel-Face Door Slam), there has to be an underlying assumption - on both the repenter's and the judge's ends - that a crime can be forgiven, with enough work. For Dostoyevsky - you know, the terrorist? - to line up with both C&P and Dostoyevsky - you know, the writer? - or rather, what hazy picture i have of his body of work. For a change to happen, the implicit assumption has to, as well. Therefore, the answer is: no. (as of right now, circa ch107)
…i recall randomly going "wouldn't it be really lulzy if the endgame was NGE's Instrumentality?" but between writing out the above step-by-step, and DoA's objective having to be something to shook Atsushi outside of black-and-white thinking backed by DoA being a treat to ADA… and it's infuriatingly self-defending against that quote you have provided; "define: death"
If we hinge on ability user != ability, and 'ability as an analogy for having thoughts deep/insistent enough to write them down and publish', it circles back to the above, tho without an in-universe explanation. …when is an ability not tied to a user? When it's a singularity. This is the part where once again i suddenly remember i haven't read a single LN and just absorb spoilers like a sea sponge, but: is there some mention (in Stormbringer?) that singularities do not change? In the sense of 'do not adapt to stimuli'? If yes, it would not be a complete sweep as elaborated above, but would still line up with "not acting" in a way. If we tie this to the whole 'god likes order' we breach straight into an entire memeplex of "perfect order = no change" (see also: Shin Megami Tensei's law - aka christian god and angels - factions)
Everyone is in full conspiracy mode since (a little before) the last chapter with the Fyodor ability theories and I'm loving that. That got me thinking:
What was Fyodor's objective again?
Disclaimer, I fully rely on translations, but I cross-checked with two of them so...
special thanks to @ticklinglady for finding these pages!
"... a world free of sin and skill users."
1. A world free of sin
He says he wants to spill the blood of the sinners like 3 times but doesn't really give an explanation of who, what or why.
His definition of "sin" is quite vague, but could be the usual catholic/christian stuff. The one time he identified a specific behaviour as a sin was when the Agency and Port Mafia were killing each other "even though they knew they were being set up to do so" (though he also said Ace breathing and thinking was a crime and said killing Karma was freeing him).
In the Dead Apple novelization (not written, but edited by Asagiri, who came up with the original idea for the movie and gave a whole speech on Fyodor to the writing team), Fyodor does make a speech about the post-dragon red fog surrounding the Earth, transforming it into a "dead apple" by essentially killing everyone and "washing away the original sin of man". The apple motif was a sort of poetic irony.
According to the novelization, this was his true objective at the time and he never mentions the Book, not even in the epilogue, as opposed to doing so in the movie.
This scenario is kind of a contradiction, since the fog would have erased everyone except ability users, though most would have suffered at the hands of their abilities before dying. Said abilities would have then been kept in a collection maintained by Shibusawa, an ability singularity himself, which brings us to...
2. A world free of ability users
I went through the manga and never did find an instance of Fyodor speaking ill of abilities, only ability users. That doesn't mean there is a difference to him in the first place, but it's interesting.
The Dead Apple scenario is to be taken with a grain of salt, but killing everyone doesn't seem to be a problem for him (he kills nearly everyone he interacts with anyway), and this implies that to him every single human is sinful beyond redemption and can only be saved through death. Why he is singling out ability users in that case? seems redundant.
Other instances of him talking about his objective included talking about "the will of the hand of God and Demon", doing this "for the sake of a better world", and saying the death he gives is a form of salvation by severing the influence of sins from the soul. He also talks a big game about God and his intentions (order and stuff), and Dazai likes to point and laugh at him when he does so.
As a bonus, in Dead Apple, Fyodor answered Dazai's question of why he accepted to join forces with him by saying it was "simply to see the world as it ought to be" (and because he wanted entertainment, with Dazai turning out to be that entertainment, as Fyodor was in fact using him the whole time for his own agenda).
now go and apply that knowledge to your theories
haven't paid theory-grade attention to the plot, but how about just… talking him out of it? 1) there was an amazing theory way back that dove deep into why fukuchi is so… disliked by the fandom; with the tl;dr being (amongst others! <3): "he keeps subverting expectations" - NOT having a final boss fight is 100% more of that. he did go "you have 5mins to suss out my real motives". Season with "in middle of the fight villainous monologue ranpo wakes up and wisely keeps quiet as we works out all the bits"/"atsushi joins with the actual answer clenched in his teeth, cue drama" to taste 2) teruko and fukuchi go way back, given fuku calls the other fuku 'sonny' in the flashback. the request in [villain origin story] flashback can be read as "stop (pointless) deaths", two fukus chapter has the "saving your comrades from death and ending the war, are two different things." => the objective is End-of-Death scenario* (or perhaps, some other form of 'making the world unchanging'?) why? - has to fuck with atsushi's heard harder than "world peace (with a side of totalitarian dystopia)"; thus the goal has to be something he'd personally approve of (world peace being too vague and far-off vs no orphans ever), which could potentially overwrite the means used to get there - goal smaller than (the current) world domination angle would create too much noise - escalate the stakes even harder like a proper animu * BSD makes me keep thinking in SCP Foundation terms. It's quite the assist here, as this subplot tends to have Heroic Optics to it.
so i’ve been thinking
i know, dangerous
in all honesty, what is our cast of characters supposed to do about Fukuchi..?
i’ve already made my rant analysis (that you can read here if you’re interested) about how Fukuchi is really just an old man with a time traveling stabby stick that makes for a horrible OP villain. up until now, when presented with such a crisis, either soukoku or shin soukoku will partner up and defeat the big bad… or at least they had weaknesses, like Dostoy not anticipating Dazai was going to find him at the end of the cannibalism arc, or how most of his henchmen and underlings were eventually foiled or defeated to come to a satisfying conclusion that set us up for the next story beat. even Ranpo has his weaknesses, and his whole character is centered around knowing everything
well, we know for a fact that that’s not going to happen this time considering our usual duos and their friends are having some technical difficulties at the moment...
so that makes me think…
obviously we have Fukuzawa, who is currently fighting, and Atsushi is... around. but, the character on my mind the most at this point is Mori, since he’s been missing for quite a long time now. this by itself isn’t a big deal considering side characters often go literal years without any story time. however, this becomes a bit more interesting considering what’s happening to the rest of the Mafia and the world right now in bsd
so, i’m going to analyze some pieces that might be added to this 4d chess board of a story line. including more than just Mori. however, i’ll be talking about Mori quite a bit in this post, like almost half of it actually, so if you don’t feel like reading this, that’s fine
🔺minor spoiler warning for chapters 30/31, 50, and 84, and Dead Apple and Stormbringer. also spoilers for basically the entire current arc up to the most recent chapter as of writing this (ch 105) since i talk about most of the main events/situations🔻
I’ll start by taking a moment to talk about the European android everyone knows and loves(?) from Stormbringer…
Ah yes, the android, the myth, the legend, and the being that made me cringe so hard i got face cramps the first time I read him chewing and swallowing multiple pieces of gum like candy. That Adam.
We never see him or even hear of him in any other part of the story, including the main manga. He’s kind of just in Stormbringer and never brought up again, supposedly living somewhere in Europe doing android detective things. We haven’t even gotten a hint or any foreshadowing that he might show up in the main story, either. The reasons I think he may show up now are kind of simple to be honest.
He’s an android. That’s it. He’s, y’know, not made of flesh… And he doesn’t have blood.
What makes blood important right now? The vampires. Considering we know that Bram can transform a human, alive or otherwise, into one of his minions by ingesting their blood, we can probably assume that this is how it works for the other vampires as well. Therefore, Adam is at a major advantage against such an enemy since 1. his body is made of metal that couldn’t be damaged by Piano Man’s wire guillotine or regular bullets and survived the heat of Chuuya’s first Corruption with minimal damage, and 2. he doesn’t have blood. He does have this blue substance that I assume acts something like oil or fuel for his body, but since he’s most definitely not human, this doesn’t count as blood for him. He can’t be turned into a vampire. I don’t even think Fyodor could hack him or put a virus into his system, like he did to the Moby Dick (which is technically an ability that got turned into a mechanical ship). If anything, the vampires would just break their fangs trying to bite into his neck.
Since he’s in Europe, which is where our two jail kings and their entourage are, it’s more likely that Adam will appear in the jail scene with Dazai and Dostoy. I’d honestly be happy to see this because it would be interesting to see how he and Chuuya would interact now after so many years apart if Chuuya is ever cured of his, y’know, vampirism. Since he most definitely isn’t going to just die. It would also introduce a new character for people who haven’t read Stormbringer, which could reignite interest in this god forsaken arc for those of us who have given up on getting more than a few cliffhangers and a reminder that Fukuchi sucks every new chapter (trust me, I feel you).
Moving on to another semi-short analysis for a character we haven’t seen outside of light novels. And the mildly disappointing adaption of one said novel.
Another character who is also in Europe, specifically London, is Shirase. At the end of Stormbringer, he and Chuuya parted ways on somewhat good terms when Shirase heard of a group called the Stray Sheep in Europe, which he joined. Nothing has been heard of him since, similar to Adam. The only reasons I bring him up here is that 1. he’s in Europe, same as Adam and the jail kings, and 2. he is also connected to Chuuya (and is familiar with Dazai, to some degree, but this isn’t important).
I’m hesitant to say he’ll appear in the story considering we truly have no idea what the state of the BSD world is right now. Japan is overrun with vampires, and there’s probably nobody left there who hasn’t been bitten unless they’re a major character in the story (that hasn’t already been bitten). We know that the vampires have been moving out by disguising themselves with sunglasses and stuff to hide their eyes and complexion and getting on planes. Where those planes went to, we only know it’s somewhere overseas. There’s also mentions of fictional countries that only exist within the BSD world, similar to Kenji’s home town being a fictional one from a novel written by the irl Kenji. Fukuchi mentions he “needs to control half the nations’ armies” in order to carry out whatever plan he has, and it’s probably safe to say this has already come to fruition since he threatened to set the vampire army in motion if One Order wasn’t unlocked.
The likelihood of a character like Shirase appearing without being a vampire is much, much lower than Adam, and for more reasons than just because he’s a regular human. Shirase has no ability and is not named after an author or any other real-life person (that I know of), therefore it’s very unlikely he’ll be revealed to have one unless he wields an ability weapon like Fukuchi’s sword. Which is also highly unlikely. Given these conditions, he’s probably already been turned into a vampire along with the rest of the organization he joined. Another possibility for his inclusion is just to be killed off (by, perhaps, a vampire Chuuya). Or he might make a joint appearance with Adam, but I still doubt he’ll be a major character unless he’s there to die to further the plot.
Not to mention Asagiri has mentioned many times that Chuuya’s story is a long one that’s full of hardships, so perhaps one of those hardships may just be having to kill an old friend.
Sorry Shirase fans, but that’s just my thoughts on the matter.
From here on, I’ll be discussing Mori and how he’s appeared and disappeared throughout major story arcs and how he’s interacted with the ADA since the cannibalism arc. I know he’s apparently a controversial character to talk about because of his ability and the comments he makes about underage girls and whatever, so if you don’t feel like reading this part, that’s fine.
In case you’re interested in another character appearance, I have added a few honorary mentions at the bottom of this post.
Port Mafia Boss. Underground doctor. Ex-military doctor. A third of the Tripartite Framework. And one half of the first version of soukoku before it was known as soukoku.
His titles honestly don’t mean much to me as the only thing he continuously claims to motivate him is his position as the Boss, which is reasonable as his entire livelihood is dependent on the organization and its success. He fills his role well as a clear villain character with extremely black if not straight up non-existent morals, which we get plenty of examples of during the Dark Era, the Guild arc, and even the Cannibalism arc. The currently arc also proves that he’s both willing to provide some aid to the ADA, as well as make manipulative requests of them despite the horrible position they’re in currently for his own potential benefit. He is truly, wholeheartedly, an evil character.
What I want to focus on the most is his hand in moving the pieces on the chess board, so to speak. We know that Dazai and Dostoy are both sitting on the board, presumably in control of every piece, but is that really true? Remember, Dazai is only the way he is because Mori manipulated and taught him to be that way, which we can see from the parallels in how they act when making threats or doing something morally wrong. The comparison between Dazai’s attitude and Mori’s in chapter 30 is telling enough, seeing that Mori’s expression when he murdered the previous Boss 8 years ago (as well as when he talks with Hirotsu in this chapter) is almost identical to the one Dazai makes as he says his thinly veiled threat to do the same to Mori. The anime makes these expressions even more similar than they are in the manga, but I take everything studio bones does with a heavy grain of salt at this point… And not just with BSD
The last time we saw Mori was when he was mentioned in chapter 91 as the liaison who informed Tanizaki and Kenji that it was time to come out of hiding. He appeared normal and not infected by the vampire virus, which isn’t much of a surprise to me. Stormbringer showed that he’s more than capable of avoiding death, and by proxy, avoiding the master assassin Verlaine. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to assume he was able to avoid the hive mind army of vampires that are just regular soldiers, and most of the ability users that have been infected are mafioso who Mori is very familiar with. However, whether or not he’ll intervene in the prison arc is not what I plan to discuss here.
The previous two characters would only make sense to appear in the prison because of their relationship to Chuuya and their location. Mori is Chuuya’s Boss, sure, and sure he probably wants to keep Dazai alive and on his radar, but Mori is still in Japan and knows that Meursault isn’t a place to be taken lightly.
No, I think Mori is about to become a player in the battle against Fukuchi.
My evidence isn’t necessarily anything concrete or even any foreshadowing, such as with chapter 84 when it was pretty obvious that Akutagawa was going to show up to aid Atsushi when he was saying he was all alone, or back in chapter 31 where it was obvious that soukoku was going to reunite for a big fight.
Fukuzawa, so far, has been the only person capable of standing up against Fukuchi alone and not being beaten within seconds (except Tachihara, but, well… yknow). So this alone is interesting to me because Fukuzawa is one of the strongest fighters in the ADA, and arguably one of the strongest fighters in the entire story considering his ability has nothing to do with his raw swordsmanship and martial arts skills. Keeping that small fact in mind, I want to jog your memory of the battle that happened in chapter 50 between Fukuzawa and Mori. Both of them are afflicted with the cannibalism virus, which is probably causing them to feel horrible with symptoms, but they still face off in a 1v1 that looks a little unfair. Mori has his ability, Elise, that does whatever he tells it to do and is basically a highly skilled and deadly combat ability. Fukuzawa, while still an ability user, only has his sword and his physical talents. His ability is a support ability that works on his subordinates, he can’t use it to fight like Mori or Fukuchi. However, he still holds his ground extremely well and even destroys Elise within minutes if not seconds of the fight starting, and Fukuzawa deals the fatal blow to Mori first. Even though Mori also severely wounds Fukuzawa just seconds later, it’s more important that this fight showed us that they are practically equal in combat skill. Not to mention Natsume makes an appearance to tell the two of them to stop fighting since both of their organizations need to survive to uphold the Tripartite Framework, which is something they both agree to disagree on basically.
There’s also the events of Dead Apple where, while under the effects of Shibusawa’s fog, Mori and Fukuzawa are fighting their own abilities and struggling. However, when they meet and switch opponents, they easily take down the other’s ability. They even share a few lines of dialogue that shows they’re familiar with each other’s fighting styles and tricks, similar to their explosive meeting in chapter 30 during the Guild Arc.
Now let’s look at the situation Fukuzawa is in right now. His subordinates are in all danger, and the only one that could potentially be coming to his aid is Atsushi, which is a possibility that I’ll mention at the end of this post. However, doesn’t this setup of our protagonists in a life-or-death situation with no help in sight, seem a little familiar to you?
Dazai was surrounded by soldiers in chapter 31 when Chuuya arrived to (begrudgingly) help him out, on Mori’s orders. Dazai was literally dead in Dead Apple when Chuuya showed up to punch him in the face (deserved) to save him.
Atsushi rarely wins on his own, but with Akutagawa’s help and the singularity created by their combined abilities, they’re able to defeat almost any enemy. And when Atsushi was desperate for help in chapter 84, Akutagawa arrived, even if it was on Dazai’s orders.
Fukuzawa is currently losing the fight against the OP time traveling stabby stick wielding grandpa, putting him in a dire situation of trying to save the ADA while not dying in the process. So, will Mori come out from wherever he’s hiding to provide aid to Fukuzawa? Will zenki soukoku come back and parallel the other soukoku’s reuniting/working together to defeat the big bad? It’s hard to say, honestly, but I do believe it’s entirely possible considering Mori has been strangely missing in the story after agreeing to aid the ADA. Well, the ADA needs aid. Badly. And it’s about time they finally got some.
I think Fukuzawa and Mori have the potential to defeat Fukuchi together considering their both equal in strength, so perhaps putting their finely tuned skills together is what will prove to be our deus ex machina that defeats Fukuchi’s self-induced deus ex machinas that are honestly getting pretty damn tiring at this point.
There’s also the fact that Mori had originally agreed to aid the ADA on the condition that one of their members transfers to the Mafia, so perhaps Mori showing up to aid Fukuzawa will be a manipulation tactic to force them to agree to let him choose who he wants to join, since he only actually wants Yosano out of the deal. However, it’s possible that maybe Tanizaki will be the one to change organizations? He did offer to go in Yosano’s stead in chapter 65 when the deal was originally proposed by Mori, who straight up lied about what Fukuzawa told him over the phone that the one person Mori couldn’t choose was Yosano. Mori is a very, very smart man, so he probably knows that if he forces the ADA into enough of a corner under the guise of helping them, he can get what he wants out of them as well. He could also allow the majority/some of the ADA members to die or come close to force Yosano to heal them and work for him one way or another, since we saw in her backstory in the military that Mori isn’t above shooting someone to make Yosano heal them because now they’re “close to death”. He most likely hasn’t changed much in those ways over the years, so I’m expecting to see some extreme manipulation taking place on his part if he does come back into the story.
Honorable mentions that came to mind as I was working to gather potential suspects:
He’s there, kind of, I guess. So much of the arc recently has been like 2 pages of one perspective before changing to the next that I’m not even sure if he’s still the main protagonist anymore. /j
Since he’s also at the airport where this whole *gestures wildly* thing is happening between the two Fuku’s, it would make sense that he at least shows up during the fight. We also know he’s actively looking for Fukuzawa because he can’t decide on what to do next now that he knows what the DOA is after.
The only way I see Atsushi being implemented in the battle is if he gets super upset or angry over seeing all his friends and coworkers in serious trouble, and either Fukuzawa releases his ability (if that’s even possible) from Atsushi and allows him to use the full power of the White Tiger to fight Fukuchi, which could potentially defeat the time-traveling sword since the Tiger’s claws can cut through abilities. The other option is he goes feral? I don’t really know to be honest. Maybe he just gets his ass beat again by Fukuchi. Who knows. I’ll just be over here preparing the party poppers for Kunikida’s promotion I guess.
Why? For fun.
He’s never appeared in the main story line since he lives in the Port Mafia’s basement basically. But considering the Mafia kinda went up in flames (or vampires, I guess) it’s possible he’s on the move now. Whether he’d appear in the jail, to save Chuuya, or appear at the airport, potentially under Mori’s orders, I honestly don’t know. But, since he’s part of the Mafia and another character we haven’t seen, and the cover of volume 22 as well as other official artwork has been featuring several Stormbringer and Sheep references, some people believe we might be seeing someone from that cast of characters in an upcoming chapter. But honestly I think they might be on as much copium as I am…
It would be funny to see Verlaine show up and just crush Fukuchi in like 3 seconds while the rest of the protagonists couldn’t defeat him though.
We see Ango last in chapter 95 when it’s revealed he’s the one that demanded a seal be put on One Order, at Dazai’s request as part of his plan to counter Dostoy. He hasn’t been a big player in this arc beyond being the coordinator early on for the ADA’s moves, but since they all were reunited and came up with their own plans, he’s been more active as just a background character acting on the messages from Dazai. But, since he is the final piece of the Tripartite Framework, I thought I’d just mention him here as well. Natsume clearly wants the three organizations to work together, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Dazai has also given Ango a message or plan to relay to Mori. I don’t think he’ll ever be a super big part of the current events, though, just more of the background coordinator.
We kind of see them and then we don’t. We know Fitzgerald wants to work with whoever is winning, which as far as we know, he thinks is going to be the ADA. He was giving them aid in exchange for Yosano healing Mitchell, but we don’t really see anything come after this agreement is made? Atsushi and Kyouka get into one ambulance with Mitchell inside to bring her to Yosano, and at the same time, Yosano (along with Tanizaki and Kenji) are attacked by the government who set up their own trap unknown to Fitzgerald and Atsushi. We know Fitzgerald didn’t set them up because in the first few pages after we see the government attacking, we see Fitzgerald explaining why he didn’t go with the 74 plans Alcott prepared that included selling out the Agency’s location. Technically, it only happened because Tachihara is a Hunting Dog, so he betrayed the location of the meeting since Mori sent him and the other Black Lizard captains for security, and Tachihara is using his metal manipulation to pretend as if there’s an ability user attacking them with the government so they have to retreat after Kenji is severely injured. He’s also there to prevent Atsushi from reuniting with Yosano just a few minutes later. Which is truly impressive since he’s technically fighting himself the entire time? Wow is that symbolism of him as a character if I’ve ever seen it, that’s for sure. Not to mention he also stabs himself with Gin’s knife, just *chefs kiss* of a character I really wish he wasn’t killed/vampire-d whatever the fuck happened because he deserved so much better. But anyway, we never see the Guild again after this. So we have no idea what they’re currently doing, nor have we seen the other branch of the “Guild” that Steinbeck created at the end of the Guild arc since the end of that arc. So, I doubt they’ll come back.
They’d have jurisdiction over Meursault, but it’s hard to say if they’ll step in. They haven’t been a part of the story at all beside Agatha’s little cameo from chapter 12. On a side note, I believe Agatha’s ability will be something along the lines of causing death in accordance to the lines in the poem “Ten Little Soldiers” (obviously I’m not putting the original name here) since her ability is named after the mystery novel And Then There Were None that’s about ten people dying on an island of various means that follow the reasons in the rhyme of the poem. It’s quite interesting, actually. But back to my main point, I don’t really see why they would suddenly come into the story now. If anything, they might appear if Fukuchi decides to try and use his vampire army against the governments of the world and create a world-wide coup d’etat with One Order.
Is this a copium-driven fever dream of a hope to have? Haha, fuck yeah it is! But I’ll let the copium win today if it means having at least a little hope that Fukuchi’s arc of shitty OP-ness will come to an end soon. Please. Asagiri I’m begging. I’m on my knees. Just PLEASE
Anyways, that's my thoughts on the matter. This theory was a little out there and not really based on too much evidence, but I still felt the need to write up this post, or else the brainrot might actually get my final braincell and it'd be all downhill from there.
As always, I hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading. If you have your own idea of what you think will be the thing to defeat Fukuchi, feel free to say it in the comments or send a message to my Inbox on my profile. We can cope theorize together :)
**i just finished editing this oh my god this is so long i’m sorry i just had a lot of brainrot about this and i’m desperately awaiting whatever is going to end Fukuchi to the point i want to do it myself
An interesting thing to note in regards to the Akutagawa-Tanizaki debate: their viewpoints were likely somewhat influenced by the styles of traditional vs. Western literature. Akutagawa Ryuunosuke tended to be more faithful to the emotional and abstract style of Japanese literature— whereas at the time of this debate, Tanizaki Jun'ichirou was deep in his fascination with the West, which is associated with stories that have more focus on a structured plot by comparison.
The interesting thing about this is that, later in life, Tanizaki-sensei would undergo a "Return from the West", in which his fascination with the West dwindled, and he became more invested in traditional Japanese aesthetics. In a roundabout way, the real life counterparts of Tanizaki and Akutagawa went from being at odds, to ultimately coming to an agreement— though Akutagawa-sensei passed away before he could witness Tanizaki-sensei's change of heart.
In regards to BSD, this could be paralleled with Tanizaki (the bsd character) leaving the Agency, whose members are authors who leaned more towards a Westernized style of writing, and transferring to the Port Mafia, which is composed of authors who were more loyal to the more traditional, abstract/emotional style of literature. But who knows, maybe Asagiri will surprise us.
The Tick: letters get carved on it, visible from earth LOCAL 58 TV: implied to be an alien colony? A Creature? I Wanna Be The Guy: moon dropping on you is one of it's 'lol u ded' moments
List Of Media Where Something Fucked Up Happens To The Moon
despicable me (moon theft)
miraculous ladybug (moon split in half)
hermitcraft (moon big)
feel free to add
Fukuchi's page is likely to be a fake. Keeping a page unused runs the risk of someone retconning what was already written on it, especially since they would see the exact phrasing used. But is the page does have some empty space, Fukuchi would like to keep it on his person as an assurance no ratly concerns are solved with it. So for the sake of good PR you give out a replica - when Fuku decided to use it, it would be either to do finishing touches (at which point it would happen to late to properly react to it's fakeness), or to cover a major fuckup (at which point, it's fakeness is the final nail in the coffin). If he suspects it's a fake, testing it out on something smol would risk eating up squares/space on the real page, but acknowledging the possibility prevents using it to it's full extent (as to hedge one's bets).
“Reading David Sirlin's writing on an actual issue affecting Yugioh is honestly one of the most special experiences I've had with this game“
i remember someone mentioning that a Sonia-like character would work to set up Dostoy for a redemption arc, but it couldn't be Sigma b/c they're wrapped around his finger. BUT NOW, their self-esteem should be improved via Dazai + they're being given all intel in a way that would prevent lying + apparently they're held in high esteem by Dostoy + being 3yo gives relatively biasless outlook.
bonus rephrasing: now Sigma has taken the offer to have their knowledge be equal to someone they percieve as having absolute control over everything.
or, you know, just flip them over and step on their trachea.
Spoilers for the ending of the Mersault arc in Bungou stray dogs season 5.
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2.
1.
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Going back and reading the Mersault arc again.
My favourite little detail foreshadowing the twist at the end...is Chuuya's hands.
No I'm not kidding.
Chuuya's outfit has changed from what it usually is.
He's not wearing his gloves.
For most of the arc he's in, his hands remain in his pockets.
When fighting Rimbaud years ago Chuuya said to him:
"Wanna know why I've been keeping both my hands tucked away this whole time? It helps me stay rooted when I'm afraid I'm gonna lose myself."
It's why he takes his gloves off when he activates corruption.
But here Chuuya's hands are tucked away in his pockets, just like they were before he joined the Port Mafia.
He's still in there.
He hasn't lost himself.
The other thing I love is that while Chuuya's outfit has changed, he's still wearing his hat. The hat that Mori gave him when he joined.
It's a clear sign that he's still with the Port Mafia.
But Fyodor doesn't know Chuuya, he doesn't know the significance of his hat nor why keeping his hands tucked away mean.
Fyodor doesn't trust people.
That was his first mistake.
His second was thinking he could ever control Chuuya Nakahara.
write. your. own. if not now, when? if not you, who? i certainly started crying at code out of sheer lack of gameplay as good as ruina; and implore you to do the same. The other option is to just be miserable, with no end in sight.
...that said, seems like this fandom needs to learn of the existence of Wisecrack:
After talking with people in discord for the week that this has been going on, I think my feelings on the Project Moon situation are just. Like, this was a company I felt was "safe". Obviously corporations are not your friends, but this was a studio that consistently pushed out games with progressive - and at times even radical - messaging. This was a studio that has consistently written solid characters with gender as an absolute afterthought. Emma is a boy! Harold is a girl! That's how little gender matters, which, ironically, is something that matters.
I can't think of another franchise I've engaged with that just... writes women as people. I've heard George R.R. Martin is like that, but I never engaged with the TV series that introduced the US to the concept of filler or the book series it was based on. I'm gonna gloss over Lobotomy Corporation a bit here because the story only has 13 characters, but 12 of them return for Library of Ruina. In Ruina you have Binah, Angela, Nikolai, and Elena as assertive women that take control of the situations they're in. You have passive uwu smol beans like Hod and Eileen! You have characters who are war criminals and that's not a mark of a villain, that's just a part of their backstory! Some of the women here have just Done Crimes! One of the women IS a crime! And men are treated the same! There are characters with traumas and behavioral disorders who act like real people would! Lesti saw the aftermath of Love Town and started talking about food! Beef intestine no less! Philip saw his colleagues get murdered and physically manifested a mental breakdown! Xiao saw her husband get murdered and physically manifested literal burning rage!
All of the writing has been good! All of it! And it has consistently written women in a way that is flat out rare, even in 2023. And Limbus has been doing the same! Outis is assertive! Ryoshu is assertive! Hermann is assertive! Don is an idiot and Faust refuses to talk half the time! Heathcliff is assertive! Meursault is assertive! Gubo is assertive! Hong Lu is an idiot and Sinclair is/was a pathetic sop! Across the board, the character writing is just GOOD. As Lobotomy Corporation progresses, Ayin's shitty behavior becomes more and more apparent! And that all culminates with Angela being tossed aside like garbage once she's no longer useful to him, as you hear her desperate wishes to just be seen!
All of that, or at least most of that, was Kim Ji-hoon. But Kim Ji-hoon is also the person who hastily fired VellMori at 11 PM, over the phone, while he was out of office in Japan, because some incels accused his company of being sympathetic to feminists in 2023.
And it fuckin hurts that the source of those stories, the stories that I just spent three paragraphs praising, the stories that are so important to me, could turn heel in half a second like that. As if he was writing completely different stories than the ones I've been reading. And I hate that? I hate that. Because there isn't a replacement! I don't get Grandma War Crimes and Dumbass Justice Enactor in other stories! Like, maybe some will come close, maybe some will have the same exact character somewhere, but never all of it together. Never written as amazingly as the City is.
So it hurts. And the silence is loud.
and how did i even learn of tildes/fedi to begin with? reddit. Links upon links to "how to set up mastodon" "how to join tildes".
here's the thing: whole subreddits are now outright dead, with only antique/nothingburger posts and a link to discord. local chapter of 4chan* has a survey every New Years. It's userbase shrinks and grows old. As local digg went from "nonobviously rightwing nutjob leaning" to "rightwing nutjob turf", people visibly migrated to national subreddit (causing an influx of whiny posts). This caused this not-digg's frontpage to go from "there is something interesting" to "all trash all the time". Hell, afaik The 4chan was better until janitor positions were taken over by neonazis, tho all i remember is dropping by and going "wow even the insults/conspiracies got shittier". Like, i am pretty sure /a/ had real threads instead of a torrent of m e d i o c r i t y. You'd expect tiddies but not even that
You're seeing the point i'm getting to, right? Creativity (and thus, quality content to jump ship for) is fundamentally** left-leaning. When enmuskittification of twitter happened, where did people go to? Tumblr. Why? because SM reposts. The Good Stuff had tumblr structure -> tumblr it is. In other words, it's not even needed to proselytize. The moment the user wants to leave the cesspool, they will, taking literally the first train link out. Do you know anyone who is hanging around those 9gag meme aggregator sites? (If you do, how the hell they didn't migrate to greener pastures already?) You do not need to do fancy loopholes to point them elsewhere, especially when you can just search for search engines/social media/forums (these still exist!).
…so, how the fuck did you manage to catch me on supremely awkward tumblr? because i'm not on feddit et al! The other part of it is - people stick to specific websites because they have critical mass of users that end up producing qualityposts on various topics, not just specific censorbait. Consider all the posts here on Palestine - noone would bother if it was an echo chamber, BDS call to action works only if released upon territories that are general-assembly, otherwise the blast zone is too small.
Herein lies my actual parry: people get tech-savvy with time/practice/neccesity. By being the content on sites you do not want to support, you disincline them to leave these lands. What if they try to talk, get banned, then fed up, then leave FB/tiktok/etc? Good! That's what should happen! They will move and wherever they go to will be richer for it. Furthermore: persistent 'stupidity' 'naivete' conceals something else. What if they like it there because it censors icky, inconvenient, buzz-killing subjects? This is why leaving is so important - by staying the cesspool gets the good (original thought that comes from not being the majority) without the bad (the minorities existing at it)!
tbh i despise "can someone please think of the children!" argument. It always covers something else - even if in this case it doesn't seem to cover anything more ambitious than unwillingness to cut ties with whoever is on… the blacklist the discouse of OP's post provides. Anything that protects the children either protects everyone or is An Agenda. So yes, we can and should leave to rot anyone who doesn't want to leave.
in the spirit of the post, furthermore was partially powered by:
*because of it's secrecy, yes, but that also means it's a quality chan still. **i do not need to labor for proof of that, right?
...also now that i'm double-checking above i'm reminded of a method to disrupt activists by tying them up in inefficent endeavours. Couldn't find a good proof it's part of modernized cointelpro until i tapped mojeek. Not an accusation but it's good to have an eye on the big picture and the goal-of-goals, yeah?
Endlessly diabolical how you can't say words like rape and suicide uncensored without either being criticised by idiots or punished by conglomerates.